Documenting Winchester history through moments from ordinary life

Mariya Manzhos

Thursday

Oct 4, 2018 at 3:14 PMOct 5, 2018 at 10:04 AM

While uncovering and documenting Winchester’s history typically lies on the shoulders of historians and archivists, in a little over a week all Winchester residents will get a chance become participants in creating the town's history.

The public history project of UMass Boston called the Mass. Memories Road Show is coming to Winchester on Saturday, Oct. 20 to collect photographs and stories from the community to then be entered into a digital archive of more than 6,000 photos and stories from across the state. In the database available online, photos of people and landscapes give a glimpse into thousands of private lives. There is a young girl dressed in her band uniform holding a trumpet, a seniors’ "skip day," a family of immigrants visiting Boston for the first time.

For the Winchester Mass. Memories Road Show event at the Jenks Center on Oct. 20, visitors are invited to bring three photos -- they can be on their iPhones, thumb drives or in the form of hard copies. There are no specific requirements for the photos: they can be photos from a prom or En Ka fair, happenings around Winchester, or just moments from everyday life that don’t have Winchester as the backdrop. Regardless of the setting, each resident's life represents a slice of Winchester's history.

The physical photos will be scanned and the volunteers will jot down a brief description of what’s in the photo to then enter it into in a digital archive. Visitors will also be able to record their stories on audio.

A portrait of the community

“The goal is to characterize the community,” said Nancy Schrock, who wrote the grant on behalf of several groups in Winchester to participate in the UMass Boston’s project.

The project has already hosted Road Shows in over 50 cities and towns and aims to document all 351 communities in Massachusetts.

Partly the idea of the project is to change how we think about history, said Winchester town archivist Ellen Knight.

“There is a misconception out there about what’s historic,” she said. “People today are a huge part of history, just living their ordinary daily lives.”

A seemingly unremarkable photo of a guy with a truck, she explained, may tell a story of his business, an important slice of Winchester history.

One of the project’s goals that Schrock speculates may prove to be a challenging is creating a well-rounded portrait of Winchester community, which includes all community groups -- old timers and newcomers.

“We want to document all the communities,” she said.

Beefing up the archive

The Mass. Memories crowdsourced archive would jump-start the collection for the 20th and 21st century, when the archival records get thin, she said. Many of the earlier archival records were donated, but the more recent archives are weaker, partly because there wasn’t a program or even a designated place for people to bring their photographs and other materials.

“There are gaps in our knowledge,” said Knight, and this year Winchester has a chance to enrich those records for the town, but also for educational purposes.

Local students will be able to use the collection for exploring their communities and learning more about where they come from.

“We’re not creating and printing photographs anymore, it becomes important to create databases that are going to be preserved,” said Schrock.

At its core, the Mass. Memories project suggests that history can be an intentional and collaborative process.